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Rudd re-opens Derby's Curtin detention hell - With an election looming, Kevin Rudd becomes Howard-lite and his henchman all at once: the memory of the Curtin detention centre awakens fears of torture, vilification, being beaten up by guards and locked in grave isolation compounds.

World Outrage about Kevin Rudd's Big Asylum Freeze - From psychiatrist Jon Juredini to Malcolm Fraser, from human rights lawyer Greg Barns to Andrew Bartlett, outrage swelled fast around Kevin Rudd's processing freeze of Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers, and it went international within a week.

Labor chooses John Howard's Excision Zone - 'Refugee advocates have accused the Federal Government of abandoning its softer approach to asylum seekers.' An expose of Labor's ambivalence about John Howard's shocking refugee exclusion zone and its sneaky choice.

Coal Industry overheats Kevin's Climate - Anna Rose at the 2020 Summit: I found myself in the climate stream with representatives of coal mining companies including Xstrata and Shell, yet not a single person from an environment NGO such as Greenpeace ...

The ALP's me-too refugee policy - Just before the election, Kevin Rudd tells the ABC's 7.30 Report presenter Kerry O'Brien that he's prepared to turn boats back to Indonesia, a policy brazenly in contravention with Australia's obligations under the UN Refugee Convention.

The 2010 Anti-Smuggling Legislation - Do we want to punish smugglers, or secretly close our borders? See Project SafeCom's Senate Submission and share our doubts about this brazen law proposal that would land even Tampa Captain Arne Rinnan in jail as a smuggler.

The unthrown kids - All the photographs of the "children overboard" incident in 2001 - leaked to Project SafeCom after the incident: they show gratefulness. They show fathers who are tired, but moved. They show mothers who smile, in deep love for their children and thankfulness for the rescue...

Hadi Ahmadi: Smuggler or Escape Organiser? - Perhaps it is true that, contrary to what happens on the European smuggling routes and strategies, Australian 'smugglers' cannot and should not be called 'smugglers', because they simply bring refugees home to UN safety in Australia.

Alcatraz Down Under: Christmas Island - The monstrosity is complete. Like a gigantic scar cutting through the pristine wilderness, the Christmas Island detention centre blights not just the hillside of the island, but also the Australian psyche. We now have our own prison island.

Order form for Suad Amiry's Sharon and My Mother-in-Law

Ramallah Diaries

Below is the order form for the book, and a full explanation of ways to pay for your order.

This book is sharply, gloriously different. This is a book about life under occupation, vivid and immediate enough to make you share what is ludicrous, brutal, ordinary and fantastical about the situation of Palestinians in Palestine; and it's warm, human, sometimes funny. -The Scotsman

Surprisingly funny, and refreshingly different from any other writings on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law describes Suad Amiry's experience of living on the West Bank from the early eighties to the present. Amiry tells us about the life and gossip of her neighbourhood in Ramallah, her moving family history and the struggle to live a normal life in an insane situation; from the impossibility of acquiring gas masks during the first Gulf War to her dog acquiring a Jerusalem Passport when thousands of Palestinians couldn't.

The book contains a diary Amiry kept during the Israeli invasion of Ramallah in March 2002, when her feisty 92-year-old mother-in-law came to live with them and we learn how daily chores such as buying food and visiting friends and relatives become Herculean tasks for anyone living in a state of siege. With a wickedly sharp ear for dialogue, and an eye for telling details of human behavior, Suad Amiry has written a wonderful and very funny book about the absurdity (and agony) of life in the Occupied Territories. (from the Granta website)

Important Notice about this item:

About the publication Suad Amiry, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries (2005): This book is now out of stock, and we no longer supply it to our members or to the wider public. We suggest you could search for online new or second-hand bookshops to secure your copy.

Extremely funny ... it provides unique insights into life under occupation. This powerful little volume should be required reading for American neocons. -Sunday Times

Faced with the choice between laughter and tears, Amiry gives us both. Spirited, thought-provoking and shockingly entertaining. Amiry knows how to end a story with laughter, but beneath it lies a steely pragmatism, and it's this that gives hope for the region. -Daily Mail

This book is sharply, gloriously different. This is a book about life under occupation, vivid and immediate enough to make you share what is ludicrous, brutal, ordinary and fantastical about the situation of Palestinians in Palestine; and it's warm, human, sometimes funny. -The Scotsman

A journey into the absurd reality of Occupation...This is a deceptively slight book, an unexpected success in a dozen countries, which conveys a determination to endure against the odds in a good-humoured fragmentary narrative of everyday events. -Independent

A moving and witty book about the Israeli occupation of Palestine... Suad Amiry is an extraordinary woman, capable of expressing the heartbreak of an oppressed people but able also to see the absurdity of the petty rules, curfews, checkpoints and restrictions imposed on the people of the West Bank. -The Irish Times

A shocking depiction of living under Israeli occupation in Ramallah...And yet, somehow, Amiry and her friends retain a wry sense of humour which lets them laugh out loud at the absurdity...her lively writing is suffused with warmth and humanity...a moving, must-read book. -Metro

The book perceptively brings together the ordinariness, humour and pain of Palestinian life under occupation without the denseness of politics, which makes it an easy and enjoyable read. -Palestine Post